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Thursday, June 14, 2012

In The Present

No skateboarders at the blade-park, which is normally filled with too
many of them. Most of the blader's were at the first sunday in
Montebello, I knew no one was going to save me from my lonely session.
The blade-park was all mine.

Thirty minutes into it, my whole session got turned upside down.
Smiley stopped by the same park that we started blading at fourteen
years ago. He bladed years before I even considered getting a pair of
Rollerblade Troopers, and was one of the original dudes who introduced
me to wax. He would come over and do a T-stop slide, his two middle
wheels thrown out to have a bigger space to grind things, in a time when
rollerblades were only eight wheels. The two of us same age, same
grade, although Smiley was one of the "cool" kids who had an older
brother, that was in a gang, and was able to keep up with a tough
crowd.

He was taking a jog, running toward the bladepark. I saw him from a
distance and hit the rail on purpose hoping to start my A.S.A. run to
avoid any social contact.

He yelled from the entrance, "MIKE!".

He wanted to talk, I glided from the other side of the park with my 2 Feet
grin up to him. Shaved head, a little thicker from the slinky shape i
remembered him having since grade school. Roasted brown filipino, no
blades, instead he wore some Etnies that were stuffed. Its been years
since we had a conversation. I was hoping it was the person I knew
from years ago.

We talked for a bit. He was shocked that I was blading by myself. He made the assumption that I was waiting on Ranier.

I had to let him know that, "I love Rollerblading." I was willing to do this with or without anyone.

I wanted to hang out again, get him a pair of rollerblades, get him
off of whatever he was doing now. It was just hard to trust him. We
have a history. Its hard to put.

Our last interaction sometime around six years ago, he was at the
blade-park with his bike. No one has heard from him in a while, and we
heard that his older brother was hearing voices. He got into a
corner and started brushing himself off. Far from the smooth
"brushing your shoulder off" as Jay Z would do it. It was more of
brushing off spiders that were swarming him. Spider's that only he
could see and everyone else around was unaware of. Trying to blade, I
disregarded his behavior.

Construction behind the blade-park created a huge ravine, taped off.
Inside you can see huge pipes of something that were being repaired.
The ditch had to be around 7+ feet deep, any deeper and hot magma would
have spewed from the center of the earth. Something inside of him
uncontrollable made him throw his bike in. The same thing that tells
us "not to do it" was damaged and told him "it was okay if he did".
Drugs? I don't know, he never admitted what made him act this way.

How he was going to get his bike out? Another question I couldn't
answer. Before, I was able to see what he was going to do about his
bike, I left the blade-park in a hurry, pig-tails coming. Blue and Red
lights came flashing in like disco, I was on the other side of the park
faster than the Roadrunner dodging a boulder planed mathematically from
the Coyote. I wasn't going to be the lucky one to catch the ticket to
the Judge Judy show.

I haven't had a conversation with Smiley since then.

We reminysced a bit, he was coherent, he acted normal. He seemed the
same. He asked about spots I have bladed, dreams we had back in '97,
wishing we would go to those ledges with the grate underneath them in
New York and the Bubble Rails in Irvine. He talked about how he misses
blindside topsouls on a huge kink rail we used to blade in Carson.

Then we started revisiting the times when we went to the gas station
and would grab as much as we could and flee, being faster than the clerk
on shoes, with eight wheels strapped onto us, as we bladed fast as we
could across a bridge back to the park for safety. I of course loved
Ice-cream so I would grab boxes of the 50/50 bars. 50 percent orange,
50 percent cream on the inside.

He said he saw my edits on youtube and asked how being on Valo was
and what it was like to hang out with Jon Julio, our idol as kids. Most
Filipinos stick together, ask any Filipino about Pacquiao and see how
their face lights up. Jon Julio the Pacquiao of blading. I told him
about how I'm on Xsjado now and he was still shocked that I get blades
for free. The conversation became flat, he went on his way.

Trying to blade after that was tough. My mind was in the past, the
memories flashed, he sure made life interesting at the time. I started
thinking of the future, what was my next step, will I be able to hang
out with my old time friend again like the old days? My soul grinds
weren't locking on. That savannah I was getting was just a screwed up
torque. Fuck, then it hit me.

I realized what it was. What was it that I loved about blading?
What was it that had me doing it, years later even after all of my
friends that I started off with have left, drug induced or to pursue
more valuable dreams. The past was painful to revisit, I missed it, I
couldn't relive it. It was the past. The future, was filled with
thoughts of work, the anticipation of being yelled at by my chef, and
having to deal with some of the idiots I am forced to work with, to earn
some lunch money.
I was missing my tricks because I wasn't in the present. Blading to
me was my only time to be here and in the moment. Just me and whatever
the obstacle I was blading. Together, the rail I was grinding, the gap I
would be jumping were going to make magic or someone (me) was going to
get hurt if I wasn't going to be there mentally present in the time.

Blader + obstacle + present time = landing a trick.

Being here, now, in the present time meant happiness.

As much as I fear the unpredictable Smiley, I still have to thank
him. Thanking him for introducing me to the blading world and just like
him, a place for me to escape, although without the spiders. I hope him
the best and hope that one day I can see him do a blind-side topsoul
down the Carson Kink safely again.